


Shelter

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Friendship/Love, M/M, Post-Ishval, Pre-Canon, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: Maes closes his eyes and breathes slowly and carefully. He loves Gracia, but he needs Mustang. And also the reverse of that. And he doesn’t know how to reconcile it.#HyuroiWeek Day 2: Prompt: “I’ll become the umbrella for my beloved”





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> shelter (verb): 1. find refuge or take cover from bad weather or danger 2. prevent someone from having to do or face something difficult or unpleasant

“I’m useless in the rain,” Mustang mutters.

Hughes tips his chair back and raises an eyebrow. “Who told you that?”

Roy lifts his head up from where he’d been resting it atop his arm, facedown on the table. “Riza,” he says simply.

“Well you can’t listen to her. What does she know?”

Roy just shoots Maes a glare.

Hughes sighs, and fixes his chair. He leans forward onto his elbows and tries to get Roy to look at him, but Mustang won’t meet his eyes.

“I’m serious, Roy,” Hughes says, and his voice is level and smooth and calming the same way it’s always been when Roy needs this kind of comfort and care. And Roy responds to that tone of voice more than anything. He heaves a heavy sigh and then sits up, looking cautiously at Maes. “So what if you can’t start a fire?,” Hughes demands. “Do you really think that’s all you’re good for?”

The question lingers heavy in the air, and Roy won’t acknowledge it because it’s too close to the truth. But Maes would be a shitty investigator if he couldn’t read someone’s motive, and Roy has always been predictable. He needs reassurance, and cares deeply about what other people think and say about him. He takes criticism to heart, which might be enough to destroy him if he’s honestly serious about trying to be Fuhrer one day. But that is not today’s problem.

“You’re not useless,” Hughes says, leaving absolutely no room for uncertainty or the self-doubt that is already twisting Roy’s thoughts and emotions into a tangled mess. “I knew you before you had that fancy trick, remember? You were good enough then.”

Roy draws in a ragged breath and twists to look out the window of the small coffee shop they’ve sheltered in as the rain _pours_ down in never-ending sheets. He can hear it slamming onto the roof of the small building. When he was a kid, he thought bad things only happened in the rain. Central’s frequently wet weather made training at the academy absolutely miserable more often than not. He got used to dragging himself through the mud, losing his grip on rain-slick walls, squinting through the downpour and guessing at a target point a thousand meters away.

And then he fought a war in Ishval, where the lack of water made it so, so easy for fire to catch, and spread.

“Roy,” Maes says softly, and Mustang turns around. Maes reaches across the table and takes his hand, then flips it over so he can trace the lines on his palm. Roy shivers under the touch, and tries to pretend it’s just because of the weather. But his heartbeat is pounding under his ribs and his breathing stutters.

He pulls his arm away, and glares at Maes.

“Roy…”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Mustang insists. He shakes his head, and kicks at the leg of the table.

Maes blows out a breath and settles back in his chair. He raises an eyebrow pointedly. “This storm’s not ending any time soon. So if you want to avoid me, you’ll have to go out in it, and explain to Riza why you’re drenched and miserable.”

Roy narrows his eyes.   
  
Maes smirks.

“ _Fine_ ,” Mustang growls. He stares at Maes, as the churning… whatever, that’s been building up between them over the past several months finally boils over and explodes. “I just… I don’t know where we stand anymore. What’s okay? What’s off limits? Are we only not having sex anymore, or is it more than that? Are we not allowed to touch? Not allowed to stay out late? Are you not allowed to call me? ‘Cuz I know I can’t call you!”

Roy’s tirade exhausts him. His breathing is surprisingly heavy. He shifts back in his chair and glares at Maes.

“You can always call me, Roy,” Hughes says, after several seconds of uncomfortable silence.

“Your wife hung up on me!”

“You were…” ‘Drunk out of your mind’ would be a fair thing to say, but Roy already knows that, and Maes is honestly afraid of what he’ll do if he doesn’t have someone he can call. “She doesn’t know you like I do,” he says instead.

Roy turns toward  the window, and watches the heavy rain.  “She doesn’t know you like _I_ do,” he repeats, very softly.

“Roy…”  
  
Mustang glances at Hughes without really looking at him, pretending to be focused on the rain. “You call me too, you know. It goes both ways.”

“I know.”

Hughes calls, and finds excuses to visit Roy’s office even though they are literally as far apart as it’s possible to be while still within the same building. He babysits Roy at the bar whenever the people-sense he’s honed in intelligence and investigations tips him to the fact that Roy will need a babysitter. Hughes stays late at the office, unwilling - afraid to - go home. He sits on the floor and clutches the phone tightly, like a lifeline. He sits with Mustang in a coffee shop on the pretense that they’re just trying to get out of the rain.

They keep calling each other. Testing the limits. Walking the uncertain tightrope that Gracia once succinctly summarized as “best friend who you have sex with.”

And Roy watches Hughes with a mixture of longing hope and fear of rejection, because it hasn’t been long enough that either of them are completely certain that “have” has slipped to “had.” Does their relationship exist in the past or present tense?

Maes closes his eyes and breathes slowly and carefully. He loves Gracia, but he _needs_ Mustang. And also the reverse of that. And he doesn’t know how to reconcile it.

When he opens his eyes again, Mustang’s just staring at him, arms crossed over his chest, his mouth half open, waiting for Maes to say yes or no.   
  
But he can’t. He just sighs. “I don’t know, Roy,” he admits.

Roy nods, disappointed but accepting. He doesn’t say anything else, but Maes feels guilty as fuck nevertheless.

They both watch the rain. Maes closes his eyes and listens to the heavy drops pattering on the roof. They almost sound like rapid-fire gunshots to the fragments of his soul that were cut apart in Ishval. And it isn’t Roy’s fault, but that doesn’t change the fact that Maes will never be able to be with him without slipping back into hell. He dreams about his own death, wakes up fighting the phantom pain of the bullet that tore through his liver nearly a full year before the State Alchemists were sent in to irrevocably change the nature of the war. Roy’s seen the scar, but he wasn’t there, and sometimes Hughes can’t help but lay some kind of illogical blame there. He screams in his sleep, and he never knows what to say to Gracia except the obviously false “I’m fine.”

“Looks like the rain’s slowing down,” Roy says, and Maes takes another breath and opens his eyes. Mustang frowns at him, the unspoken obvious question written on his face. Maes doesn’t bother to lie. He isn’t fine. Mustang understands.

Hughes walks up to the counters and orders two coffees to-go. It gives him an excuse to get up and move. When he hands Roy his coffee, the warmth of the drink through its paper cup combines with the warmth of Roy’s skin. Maes lets his touch linger there for several seconds longer than necessary.

Roy smiles and says “Thanks, Hughes.” He tries to pretend he’s just talking about the coffee.  
  
They walk together through the last lingering remnants of the storm.


End file.
